X-Ray (Episode)
"X-Ray" is the fourth episode in the first season of Smallville, and fourth episode overall. It aired on November 6, 2001. Summary Tina Greer's skeleton is laced with meteor rock. She is able to assume any form. She assumes the form of Lex Luthor to rob a bank. Clark Kent discovers he has X-ray vision. Lana Lang discovers her mother was much more interesting than her aunt ever told her before. And Lex Luthor turns the tables on Roger Nixon gaining himself an unwilling ally at the Metropolis Inquisitor. Recap At the Smallville Savings and Loan, Lex Luthor tells the manager that he wants to close all of his accounts. The manager is very disappointed and a bit confused when Lex requests all the money in cash. When Lex's signature doesn't match the signature on record, he asks to see Lex's driver's license. Lex pulls out a gun. He leaves the bank at a run with the alarm sounding. Halfway down the block he meets up with his friend Clark Kent. When Clark asks what's going on, Lex throws him through the large front window of Speck's Optical. As he recovers, Clark has a sudden headache, and then is able to see right through Lex's skin to his skeleton. Lex's bones have an odd green glow. Rose Greer confronts her daughter Tina about a backpack full of money she found in the house. She asks if it was Tina who robbed the bank yesterday. Tina morphs into Lex and says that it was Lex Luthor who robbed the bank. Her mother insists they return the money. They struggle over the backpack, and Tina's mother falls down the stairs to her death. Tina starts to call 911, but she doesn't report the emergency. Martha Kent reads about the bank robbery in the newspaper. Clark insists that it couldn't have been Lex. Jonathan seems willing to believe any terrible thing about Lex. Just then, Lex shows up on the Kent's porch. Clark is surprised that he isn't in jail, but Lex explains that he had a rock solid alibi: he was in Metropolis hosting a reception for 200 fertilizer distributors. He wants to talk to Clark because Clark was listed as one of the eyewitnesses. Clark insists that the bank robber looked exactly like Lex Luthor. In gym class, Clark is climbing rope against his buddy Pete Ross, when he suddenly looks right through Pete's skin to his muscles. Clark is so shocked, he loses his grip and falls to the floor. As he recovers, he looks right through the wall to the girls' locker room and smiles as he sees Lana Lang remove her towel. After school, he explains to his parents about his X-ray vision. His parents encourage him to practice so that he can learn to control it. Clark knows that they are just guessing and he storms out in frustration. Tina visits Lana and wonders aloud if Lana's Aunt Nell would adopt her if anything ever happened to her mother, then she and Lana could be sisters. Lana is unnerved by the strange question and assures her that nothing is going to happen to her mom. Clark is running errands on Main Street with his mom when he gets another headache. He starts seeing everyone on the street like an X-ray. He notices the skeleton with glowing green bones walk into the antique shop. Martha catches up and they enter the store to be greeted by "Rose" Greer. Clark asks about Tina. "Rose" explains that she is with Lana, so Clark leaves. Martha asks "Rose" for the lamp that Rose has been restoring. While Rose is in the back of the store, Martha finds a large sum of cash on the floor. "Rose" says that the lamp isn't ready and a client paid her in cash earlier that day. When Martha turns her back, "Rose" slips Martha's keys out of her purse. On the street, Martha is nearly run down by her own truck, with "Clark" at the wheel. Martha is shocked as "Clark" seemingly drives around the corner, but then appears behind her to help her to her feet. Back at the Kent farm, Jonathan announces that the police found their truck abandoned. Martha recalls that the antique shop is the only place she stopped that day. She also notes that Rose Greer was acting strangely and that the cash she found on the floor had a Smallville Savings and Loan band, so it could be from the robbery. It seems too crazy to suspect that Rose turned into Clark until Clark admits that when he saw Tina's skeleton it seemed green and inhuman. Martha explains that Tina was born with a soft bone disease. Despite experimental treatments, she wasn't expected to live to the age of six, but she got better around her third birthday—right after the 1989 meteor shower. Coming out of the coffee shop, Lex finds Roger Nixon, a journalist, leaning against his car. He threatens to publish a story about a previous run-in with the law Lex had at a younger age, involving a nightclub called Club Zero, unless Lex pays him $100,000 in cash. Nixon gives Lex his contact card, and tells him he has 24 hours to deliver the money or he'll publish the story about him. Enraged, Lex drives off. In the garage, Lana finds a box with some of her mother's high school things, including a diary. She asks her aunt about her mother. From the diary, Lana learns that her mother hated cheer-leading and dreamed of leaving Smallville. Aunt Nell admits that she told Lana the things she thought Lana could handle at the time. Lana laments that she has been trying to live up to a Laura Lang that didn't exist. Aunt Nell tells Lana that Laura gave the graduation speech. The first line said: "I never made a difference here, but maybe my children can." At school, Clark stares at Tina, trying to see her skeleton. Chloe and Pete agree that the only thing weird about Tina is the amount of time she spends idolizing Lana. When Lana emerges from her classroom, Tina tells her that her mom is moving to Metropolis, but she doesn't want to pull Tina out of school. Tina wants to know if she can move in with Lana and Nell. When Lana hesitates, Tina takes it as a rejection and storms off. Clark is successful in focusing his X-ray vision and spying a backpack full of cash in Tina's locker. Clark tells his parents about what he found. At the antique shop, Tina morphs into her mother just as two sheriff's deputies approach, looking for Tina. They admit that a kid with an anonymous tip led them to find the money from the bank robbery in her locker. "Lana" arrives at the loft to tell Clark about Tina. When she kisses him, she morphs back into Tina and throws Clark through the wall. She has guessed correctly that it was Clark who tipped off the police. She leaves Clark for dead. Clark tells his parents they can't call the police because Clark is the only one who can recognize Tina. Lana goes to the Smallville Torch office to ask Chloe Sullivan to help her find the graduation speech her mother delivered in 1977. Chloe discovers that due to its controversial nature, the editors decided not to print it that year. At the Luthor Mansion, Roger Nixon arrives to deliver the files and collect his money. Lex tells him that if he walks out that door Lex will make him disappear. He tells Roger that he has deleted all records of the man's existence, and announces that he wants Nixon's help. He wants him to print positive stories about him and kill negative ones. Lex takes him to a large room with a wrecked Porsche. He wants Nixon to find out how Lex survived the crash. Clark is in the barn practicing his X-ray vision on a lead box when Lana comes to visit. She tells Clark about her mother's diary. Clark muses about what he might ask his biological parents if he ever had the chance. Later, he and Pete go to the antique shop to investigate. Clark sees a skeleton in a cabinet and they open it to find Tina's mother's body. They also find pages with Lana's signature over and over, and guess that Lana will be Tina's next victim. Tina appears as Lana and asks Whitney for his letter-man jacket. At the cemetery, Lana is visiting her parents' grave when Tina appears as Whitney. She says terrible things about how Lana has a great life, but she can't see it. She has no right to be unhappy, and she doesn't deserve her own life. Tina morphs back into herself and strangles Lana, stealing her meteorite necklace. Lana wakes up inside a crypt. When Clark arrives at the cemetery, he finds Tina-as-Whitney with the necklace in her hand, and she puts the necklace in her pocket while getting close to him. At first Tina has the upper hand, but when she takes off the jacket, Clark recovers. During their battle, Tina tells Clark that Lana is dead. Clark scans the cemetery and sees one of the skeletons is moving. He breaks into the crypt and lifts Lana from the tomb. Clark's parents let him know that Tina will not be able to hurt anyone else. Whitney arrives to comfort Lana. Clark's X-ray vision activates and he is pained as he watches Whitney and Lana enter the house and embrace. Chloe locates an audiotape copy of the graduation speech and Lana is able to hear her mother's speech. Cast Starring * Clark Kent * Lana Lang * Lex Luthor * Whitney Fordman * Pete Ross * Chloe Sullivan * Martha Kent * Jonathan Kent Guest Starring * Tina Greer * Roger Nixon * Rose Greer * Nell Potter Co-Starring * Deputy Ethan Miller * Mr. Ellis Notes * Antagonist: Tina Greer * Clark develops X-ray vision in this episode. * Tina Greer is the show's first female villain. * Tina as Lex writes his signature right handed while the real Lex Luthor is left handed. * When Tina changes form, sometimes she's wearing the same clothes, and others she's wearing what the person was wearing. * This episode hints that Smallville High actually acts as both Junior and Senior High school for Smallville; Chloe mentions that she worked at the Torch the previous year copying that year's graduation speech, which means she was going to Smallville High during Junior High school. * The theme of Laura Lang's prom is said to have been Saturday Night Fever. However, Laura's prom would've been in the spring of 1977. The movie wasn't released until December of that year. * Laura Lang's speech is shown to have been uploaded on the website for The Torch later in the episode Craving. Spoilers * In this episode Lex threatens Roger Nixon after he attempts to blackmail him. This is the first of many times that Lex will threaten and manipulate people into doing what he wants. * Tina Greer's fate is revealed in season 2's Visage. * The nightclub event that Roger tries to blackmail Lex with is revealed in Zero. Locations * Smallville ** Kent Farm *** Kent House ** Smallville High School *** Smallville Torch ** Luthor Mansion ** Main Street *** Antique Shop ** Smallville Cemetery Category:Episodes Category:Smallville Episodes Category:Smallville Season 1 Episodes